In a word - it's bad. Read and learn -

The Net Neutrality Scam -

[mises.org]

FCC Head Ajit Pai: Killing Net Neutrality Will Set the Internet Free -

[reason.com]

‘Proven to Work’: FCC Chair Explains Why Net Neutrality Needs to Be Reversed -

[www.glennbeck.com]

Listen to this Interview with Ajit Pai, head of FCC - this guy's great -

[soundcloud.com]

*************

Everything You Need To Know About Why Net Neutrality Is A Terrible Idea -

[www.dailywire.com]

[reason.com]

[www.breitbart.com]

[www.nationalreview.com]

Net Neutrality is Government Censorship -

The recently upheld FCC regulations are not about ‘equality’ — they’re about control.

[www.nationalreview.com]

[www.nationalreview.com]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/2017 04:04AM by Jennifer.

The Net Neutrality Scam -

"Yet again, the government wants to fix a problem that doesn’t exist. According to the Obama administration and the FCC, it is necessary to regulate internet service providers so that they don’t interfere with people’s access to the web. The claim immediately prompts one to ask: Who is being denied access to the web?

In the past twenty years, access to the internet has only become more widespread and service today is far faster for many people — including “ordinary” people — than it was twenty years ago, or even ten years ago. Today, broadband in Europe, where the internet is more tightly regulated, has less reach than it has in the United States.

The administration’s plan is rather innocuously called “net neutrality,” but in fact it has nothing at all to do with neutrality and is just a scheme to vastly increase the federal government’s control over the internet.

What is Net Neutrality?

We don’t know the details of the plan because the FCC refuses to let the taxpayers see the 300-page proposal before the FCC votes on it today. But, we do know a few things.

Currently, ISPs are regulated by the FCC, but as an “information service” under the less restrictive rules of so-called Title I. But now, the FCC wants to regulate ISPs as utilities under the far more restrictive Title II restrictions. For a clue as to how cutting edge this idea is, remember this switch to Title II regulation would put ISPs into the same regulatory regime as Ma Bell under the Communications Act of 1934.

So what does this mean for the FCC in practice? According to FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, “It gives the FCC the power to micromanage virtually every aspect of how the Internet works.” More specifically, Gordon Crovitz at the Wall Street Journal writes:

[With Net Netruality,] bureaucrats can review the fairness of Google’s search results, Facebook’s news feeds and news sites’ links to one another and to advertisers. BlackBerry is already lobbying the FCC to force Apple and Netflix to offer apps for BlackBerry’s unpopular phones. Bureaucrats will oversee peering, content-delivery networks and other parts of the interconnected network that enables everything from Netflix and YouTube to security drones and online surgery.
The administration insists these measures are necessary because — even though there is no evidence that this has actually happened — it is possible that at some point in the future, internet service providers could restrict some content and apps on the internet. Thus, we are told, control of content should be handed over to the federal government to ensure that internet service providers are “neutral” when it comes to deciding what is on the internet and what is not.

Can Goods Be Allocated in a “Neutral” Way?

The problem is that there is no such thing as “neutral” allocation of resources, whether done by government or the marketplace.

In the marketplace, goods and services tend to be allocated according to those who demand the goods the most. Where demand is highest, prices are highest, so goods and services tend to go to where they are most demanded. This makes perfect sense, of course, and also reflects the inherent democracy of the markets. Where larger numbers of people put more resources is where more goods and services will head.

It is this mechanism that drives the marketplaces for food, clothing, and a host of other products. Consequently, both food and clothing have become so plentiful that obesity is a major health problem and second-hand clothing stores, selling barely-worn discarded clothing, are a boom industry, even in affluent neighborhoods. Similarly, cell phones have only become more affordable and more widespread in recent decades.

For industries where new firms may freely enter, and customers are not compelled to buy, companies or individuals that wish to make money must use their resources in ways that are freely demanded by others. Unless they have been granted monopoly power by government, no firm can simply ignore its customers. If they do, competing firms will enter the marketplace with other goods and services.

Although goods allocated in this fashion are — according to the administration — not being allocated “neutrally,” the fact is that more people now have more service at higher speeds than was the case in the past. Furthermore, even if firms (or the government) attempted to allocate goods in a neutral manner, it would be impossible to do so, because neither society nor the physical world are neutral.

In his recent interview on net neutrality, Peter Klein used the analogy of a grocery store. In modern-day grocery stores, suppliers of food and drink will negotiate with stores (using so-called “slotting allowances”) to have their goods advertised near the front of the store or have goods placed on store shelves at eye level.

If government were to tell grocery stores to start being more “neutral” about where it places goods, we can see immediately that such a thing is impossible. After all, somebody’s goods have to be at eye level or near the front of the store. Who is to decide? A handful of government bureaucrats, or thousands of consumers who with their purchases control the success and failure of firms?

In a similar way, bandwidth varies for various ISP clients depending on the infrastructure available, and the resources available to each client. And yet, in spite of the administration’s fear-mongering that ISPs will lock out clients of humble means, and the need to hand all bandwidth over to plutocrats, internet access continues to expand. And who can be surprised? Have grocery stores stopped carrying low-priced nutritious food such as bananas and oatmeal just because Nabisco Corp. pays for better product placement for its costly processed foods? Obviously not.

Who will Control the FCC?

All goods need not be allocated in response to the human-choice-driven price mechanism of the marketplace. Goods and services can also be allocated by political means. That is, states, employing coercive means can seize goods and services and allocate them according to certain political goals and the goals of people in positions of political power. There is nothing “neutral” about this method of allocating resources.

In the net neutrality debate, it’s almost risible that some are suggesting that the FCC will somehow necessarily work in the “public” interest. First of all, we can already see how the FCC regards the public with its refusal to make its own proposals public. Second, who will define who the “public” is? And finally, after identifying who the “public” is, how will the governing bodies of the FCC determine what the “public” wants?

It’s a safe bet there will be no plebiscitary process, so what mechanism will be used? In practice, bureaucratic agencies respond to lobbying and political pressure like any other political institution. Those who can most afford to lobby and provide information to the FCC, however, will not be ordinary people who have the constraints of household budgets and lives to live in places other than Washington, DC office buildings. No, the general public will be essentially powerless because regulatory regimes diminish the market power of customers.

Most of the interaction that FCC policymakers will have with the “public” will be through lobbyists working for the internet service providers, so what net neutrality does is turn the attention of the ISPs away from the consumers themselves and toward the regulatory agency. In the marketplace, a firm’s customers are the most important decision makers. But the more regulated an industry becomes, the more important the regulating agency becomes to the firm’s owners and managers.

The natural outcome will be more “regulatory capture,” in which the institutions with the most at stake in a regulatory agency’s decisions end up controlling the agencies themselves. We see this all the time in the revolving door between legislators, regulators, and lobbyists. And you can also be sure that once this happens, the industry will close itself off to new innovative firms seeking to enter the marketplace. The regulatory agencies will ensure the health of the status quo providers at the cost of new entrepreneurs and new competitors.

Nor are such regulatory regimes even “efficient” in the mainstream use of the term. As economist Douglass North noted, regulatory regimes do not improve efficiency, but serve the interests of those with political power:

Institutions are not necessarily or even usually created to be socially efficient; rather they, or at least the formal rules, are created to serve the interests of those with the bargaining power to create new rules.
So, if populists think net neutrality will somehow give “the people” greater voice in how bandwidth is allocated and ISPs function, they should think again."

[mises.org]

Sorry, I goofed up. In the above Mises article, I should have posted the date of the article -

February 26, 2015

The article explains Net Neutrality and why it's bad policy. It was written just before the Obama Administration implemented Net Neutrality and gave Oversight of the Internet to the FCC, Regulating the Internet as if it's a Utility; giving the Government Control of the Internet. Rule of thumb - the less Government/less Government Regulations, the better.

When Trump became President, he appointed a Republican, Ajit Pai, as Chairman of the FCC, and Ajit Pai believes in a Free Market, Free Internet and no Government Control of the Internet.

So on December 12th, there will be a vote to abolish Net Neutrality and take Control and Regulation of the Internet away from Government/the FCC. To understand Net Neutrality and why we don't want or need it, read the links in the first post.

To the Government/Regulation lovers who think that if they're on the 'equality' 'neutrality' bandwagon, they're superior to the rest of us - who are beside themselves now that Net Neutrality is gone again -

It's called Free Market/Competition -

Ditch Net Neutrality -

[mises.org]

jennifer I dont want to get into a long drawn out free market trip but I have to agree Ian Fletcher about free markets


Ive always had the view, there is no such thing as a free market.
The term should be A Fair Market
Besides the points made by Ian Fletcher, THE ENVIRONMENT under a free market becomes a free for all anything goes no regulation, dump any where.
free markets have no respect for the earth. People are what run multi national corps, People will and do trash the earth for a nickle extra. We have to have laws because of this free for all the people are waging on the earth.


Nothing free in this world



Why Free-market Economics Is a Fraud






By Ian Fletcher





If there’s one thing everyone in America knows, it’s that free-market economics is true and free markets are best.

After all, we’re not Communists, are we? They starved and lost the Cold War because they believed otherwise. And their watered-down European cousins, the socialists? More of the same, only less so. Even liberals get this nowadays. All hail the free market!

Trouble is, things “everyone” knows are often wrong. And this is no exception.

It’s time to start getting honest about a very simple fact: Nobody, but nobody, really believes in free markets. That’s right. Not the Republican Party, not the libertarians, not the Wall Street Journal, nobody.

Here’s why: a truly free market is a perfectly competitive market. Which means that whatever you have to sell in that market, so does your competition. Which means price war. Which means your price gets driven down. Which means little or no profit for you.

Oops!

Naturally, businesses flee perfectly competitive markets like the plague. In fact, the fine art of doing so is a big part of what they teach in business schools.

That’s why businesses use strategies like product differentiation, so their competition is no longer selling the exact same product they are. That’s why they use strategies like branding, so their buyers don’t think the products are the same.

Businesses will, in fact, do almost anything to get out of the hell of pure head-to-head competition.

They don’t do it because they’re crooked; they do it because they have an intrinsic economic incentive to. Always.

This is part of the innate essence of capitalism. It is not a flaw or a defect. It is part of what makes the whole system go. It is part of what makes capitalism capitalism.

People are the same way. Consider your own career. Why do you get paid more than the minimum wage? (I’m hoping you do.) Probably because you have some skill that everybody else doesn’t have. So you don’t have to bid against every unemployed person in your area to hold your job. Just a few of them. Which pushes your wage above the legal minimum.

That skill of yours is what economists call a “barrier to entry” — entry into the market for your job, that is. And if you’re anything other than a damn fool, you’ll cherish it like your very life.

I sure do.

Now let’s consider the other side of the equation. We’ve looked at free markets in things you sell. Now let’s consider free markets in things you buy.

Here everything gets turned around. If I’m buying something, I want the freest possible market in that product.

I don’t, to take an example recently on my mind, want there to be only one market for live Christmas trees in my town. I want there to be two (or more), and right next to each other so I can easily comparison shop. And I want to shop for more-easily shippable goods on the Internet, if possible, where I can potentially find the lowest price in the entire world.

I want, in other words, every seller’s nightmare. Which every smart seller will use every legal trick in the book to avoid.

As a result, nobody with any wits about them really believes in free markets. People believe in them when it’s in their interest, but not when it’s the other way around.

This is a systemic, structural condition, so anyone who tells you they believe in “free markets” is either lying, stupid, or hasn’t thought the whole concept through properly.

The latter category is quite common. Many people do their thinking about political ideology in an entirely different — and dreamily disconnected — mental space than they use for managing real life.

Frankly, everyone I’ve ever met gets the truth well enough in practice, in their own personal life or in how they run their business, so I just don’t believe anymore that anyone does believe in free markets.

Like any rational person, I’m open to counter-examples if anyone can show me any. But I’ve been asking around for a while on this, and haven’t come up with much.

This is not just an esoteric point, still less yet one more example of the familiar fact that people are hypocrites in politics.

Here’s why it matters. The political players in America today who claim to support free markets don’t. They support free markets in the things their backers buy, but maximum barriers to entry in the things their backers sell.

For example, one of the great unnoticed achievements of the Republicans (and their Democrat collaborators) from Reagan onward has been to gut U.S. antitrust law. Having a monopoly, or a cozy oligopoly with friendly rivals, is one of the best barriers to entry around.

As recently documented in Barry Lynn’s fine book Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction, American industry is now concentrated as it hasn’t been since before the era of Teddy Roosevelt and his trustbusters. (There’s a different kind of Republican for you, by the way. These truths are not liberal or conservative.)

Most Americans don’t realize this has happened because, unlike in the old days of Standard Oil, oligopolies today are cunning about masking their existence.

To take just one example, America’s eyeglass frame industry is now dominated by the conglomerate Luxottica. That’s why frames are so expensive. And any company, like Oakley the sunglass maker, that tries to break into the market? They find themselves shut out of a Luxottica-controlled distribution system. And retailers are now afraid to receive distribution from anyone else, lest they be cut off.

It’s a remarkably well-oiled scheme, and it has its parallels in many other industries. But the average consumer has no idea about this, because the range of brands, if not suppliers, in optical shops remains diverse.

We’re fat, dumb and happy. We’ve been fooled. But behind the smiling mask of a hundred labels smirks a single monopolist.

But aren’t there laws against this sort of thing?

Well, there sure used to be, enforced by unsung lawyers and bureaucrats (horrors!) at the Justice and Commerce Departments. Whom nobody considered very glamorous, but who were doing the rest of us a big favor. Talk about forgotten wisdom!

Consider some other examples:

• Tyson in chicken
• Smithfield in ham
• Menu Foods in pet food
• Frito-Lay in chips
• InBev and MillerCoors in beer
• PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, and Nestlé in bottled water
• Dickinson in medical devices
• Microsoft in operating systems
• Iron ore (three companies)
• Aluminum
• Cement
• Railroads
• Banking

The number of problems caused by letting monopoly power — whose key consequence is known as “pricing power” — is astonishing.

For one thing, this is a huge part of what ails American farmers. Family farmers are caught between the agribusiness monopolies who push up the price of their inputs (feed, seed, fertilizer, etc.) and the agribusiness monopolies who push down the price of their outputs. (The economists’ term for the latter is “monopsony,” with an “s” — but it works the same way as monopoly.)

It’s the perfect racket.

And it’s no surprise that on the other side of the equation, “free” market politicians are very diligent in imposing genuinely free markets where this suits the interests of the multinational “American” corporations that fatten their campaign coffers.

This is done, of course, as a matter of high principle and sophisticated economic rationality. It’s remarkably easy to make wonderful after-dinner speeches about free markets.

Let’s start with labor. Post-Nixon Republicans have genuinely supported just about every policy designed to weaken the pricing power of labor. This starts with weakening unions and letting the inflation-adjusted minimum wage fall, but it doesn’t end there.

You think Ronald Reagan got in 1986, and George W. Bush wanted in 2007, amnesties for illegal immigrants because they were nice, compassionate people? To ask the question is to answer it. Whatever the ultimate merits of amnesty as policy, for them it was about cheap labor, plain and simple.

The reality is that the past prosperity of America has never been based on pure free markets — starting with the fact that we had the highest average income in the world in 1776 because the colonies had structurally tight labor markets due to the open frontier. (Europeans and other Old World peoples were trapped by the iron law of wages because they had nowhere to go.)

Free, or nearly free, markets do have their rightful place in many parts of the economy, and it would be foolish to sabotage them. But in other areas — above all, in labor markets — our prosperity was based on pricing power.

A number of areas other than labor also worked better thanks to a healthy dose of pricing power. Try advanced technology, for a start. The patent system, which is not natural, is a fairly recent invention, and does not de facto exist even today in much of the world, is one. Innovation doesn’t come cheap, and without pricing power for innovators, few companies could afford it.

Even the existence of scale economies, which are intrinsic to modern, large-scale, capital-intensive industry, implies markets that are less than free. Why? Because scale economies intrinsically imply a small number of large producers and thus give rise to oligopoly, with the consequences mentioned earlier.

This is why most other industrialized nations aren’t romantics about free markets, are honest about their frequent nonexistence, and focus their policies on taming the negative effects of oligopoly while capturing the positive ones. They understand, for one thing, that big corporations are necessary but often pirates, and focus on making them share their loot with their crews.

We, on the other hand, live in a state of denial about the piracy.

So the next time someone tells you to believe in “free” markets, just tell them you’ll believe as soon as they do.

When pigs fly.


Ian Fletcher
Author, ‘Free Trade Doesn’t Work,’ Advisor, Coalition for a Prosperous America



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/16/2017 05:16AM by riverhousebill.

Quote
riverhousebill

jennifer I dont want to get into a long drawn out free market trip but I have to agree Ian Fletcher about free markets

Ive always had the view, there is no such thing as a free market.

The term should be A Fair Market

"Fair" like Equality and Neutrality means heavy-handed Government Intervention, Pay-to-Play, Picking Winners and Losers. Because the Big Corporations with all the money makes the rules - their Lobbyists write and/or approve the Legislation - to squash out the little guy - The Competition. So instead of pure Free Market Capitalism, we now have Crony Capitalism and Corporatism.

Crony Capitalism and Corporatism, that's what Ian Fletcher is describing and trying to label it The Free Market.

Yes, the Republicans/RINOs are complicit with their Chamber of Commerce and support for bringing in Illegal Aliens to work for less wages.

Only the Libertarians and Conservatives get it but there aren't enough of them to change things. Yes, we've almost never had a real Free Market.

Ian Fletcher is a hypocrite because he's a Lobbyist. So he loves Crony Capitalism and Corporatism. And he's a Protectionist who is a Tariff Proponent. I'm surprised that you think Lobbyists are great and that you think Tariffs are great. Because Trump thinks Lobbyists are great and thinks Tariffs are great, the same as you do. So if you're in agreement with Ian Fletcher, which you just said you were - you're in agreement with Trump - that Lobbyists are good and Tariffs are good.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/17/2017 01:33AM by Jennifer.

.

Ha-Joon Chang

The history of capitalism has been so totally re-written that many people in the rich world do not perceive the historical double standards involved in recommending free trade and free market to developing countries.

Ha-Joon Chang

PythiaRegistered User

19-Nov-2006 17:18 #10


SOCIALISM:
You have 2 cows
and you give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM:
You have 2 cows
the Government takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM:
You have 2 cows
the Government takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM:
You have 2 cows.
The Government takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM:
You have 2 cows
the Government takes both, shoots one, milks the other and throws the milk away...

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM:
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION:
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. Later, you hire a consultant to analyze why the cow dropped dead.

A FRENCH CORPORATION: (i love this one)
You have two cows.
You go on strike because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION:
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create a clever cow cartoon image called Cowkimon and market them World-Wide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION:
You have two cows.
You reengineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION:
You have two cows
But you don't know where they are. You break for lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION:
You have two cows.
You count them and learn you have five cows. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them again and learn you have 2 cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION:
You have 5000 cows
None of which belong to you. You charge others for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION:
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them. You claim full employment, high bovine productivity, and arrest the newsman who reported the numbers.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION:
You have two cows.
You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION:
You have two cows.
Both are mad.

AN IRISH FARMER:
You have two cows.
You claim government subsidies for eight cows

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/2017 01:16AM by Jennifer.

Socialism

You have two cows. The government takes one and gives one to your neighbor.

Communism

You have two cows. The government takes them both and promises you milk but you starve.

Fascism

You have two cows. The government takes them and sells you the milk.

Bureaucracy

You have two cows. The government takes them both, shoots one, milks the other, pays you for the milk, and then pours it down the drain.

Capitalism

You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

Redistributionism

You have two cows. The government taxes you to the point that you must sell them both in order to support someone else who already got a free cow from the government.

A Democrat

You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. You vote people into office who tax your cows, forcing you to sell one to raise money to pay the tax. The people you voted for then take the tax money and buy a cow and give it to your neighbor. You feel superior and righteous.

A Capitalist

You have two cows. You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/2017 01:41AM by Jennifer.

I'm not into political labels but I'm basically FOR anything that helps The People and the environment and AGAINST anything that harms The People and the environment and puts corporations over humanity.

So if you're against your tax money going to help children, the elderly, or just people in general battling chronic disease with their health... Or your tax money going to help young adults pursue an education that they can use to benefit society, then in my opinion you're just a selfish asshole. Helping out your fellow human beings is part of living in a functional society. If you view that as theft, especially when you yourself is benefiting from living in society, then get out. Go live out in the woods and everything you gather and do can be entirely yours. See how well you do.

Republicans seem to have the mentality of "This doesn't benefit me personally, so why should I pay taxes for it?". Because life and society doesn't revolve around your bank account and the very same society that you're living in is the reason you have any money to begin with?

Three things that should never be operated for profit: Healthcare, Prisons, and Education... Because they directly correspond with Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness. The United States spends more on healthcare per capita than any other country yet has a lower average life expectancy and higher chronic disease rates than most wealthy nations. A large percentage of the population is on anti-depressants or some other type of pyschiatric drug.

They call it the American Dream for a reason... Because you have to be asleep to believe it.

www.phytopanacea.com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/19/2017 06:51PM by jtprindl.

Also, the happiest countries in the world have socialist characteristics (Scandinavian countries, New Zealand, Canada, Netherlands, etc.).
[www.cbsnews.com]


"Everybody always asks if you have a career, if you're married, if you have children. Like if life was some kind of grocery list. No one ever asks us if we're happy."

www.phytopanacea.com



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/19/2017 10:36PM by jtprindl.

Don't even know where to start...

All those countries have very few people - like 5 to 10 Million instead of 350 Million. They're not diversified, so sure everybody is the same good people. Taxes to pay for the welfare state are through the roof and there's no competition, no chance to ever 'make it' big because everybody is kept total Middle Class forever. No Competition, no ambition, no dreams of the future,no striving to better themselves, no hope, etc. They're bored people.

And yeah, try letting in anybody and everybody for a hundred years and see how great the people - and the government - is doing. Again, they don't let anybody and everybody into their country like we do. Countries that do let all the refugees in are experiencing crisis of rape, murder and people poooping all over the place instead of in a toilet. And countries (gee, ours is the only country who lets in illegal aliens and criminals and gangs, what's with that) that let all the illegal aliens in get tons of gangs and criminals and crime and drugs, etc. No wonder we're not happy being scared all the time that we'll get robed, raped or killed by criminals/gangs, etc. - like they are happy with just their little bunch of homogeneous people who behave themselves.

That all those little tiny 'Democratic Socialist' countries are 'happy' just proves my points above.

I wouldn't be happy stepping in pooop in the streets -

[www.google.com]

Although maybe that's better than getting killed by a gang member -

[www.foxbusiness.com]

Yup, if those tiny socialist countries had gangs like we do from illegal immigration, they wouldn't be so happy would they...

********

Bring on your typical 'hater' 'racist' and 'xenophobe' attack labels now...

Take off the blinders - Wake up and smell the reality -

Sorry, Liberals, Scandinavian Countries Aren’t Utopias -

[nypost.com]

"Want proof that the liberal social-democratic society works?

Look to Denmark, the country that routinely leads the world in happiness surveys. It’s also notable for having the highest taxes on Earth, plus a comfy social safety net: Child care is mostly free, as is public school and even private school, and you can stay on unemployment benefits for a long time. Everyone is on an equal footing, both income-wise and socially: Go to a party and you wouldn’t be surprised to see a TV star talking to a roofer.

The combination of massive taxes and benefits for the unsuccessful means top and bottom get shaved off: Pretty much everyone is proudly middle class. Danes belong to more civic associations and clubs than anyone else; they love performing in large groups. At Christmas they do wacky things like hold hands and run around the house together, singing festive songs. They’re a real-life Whoville.

In the American liberal compass, the needle is always pointing to places like Denmark. Everything they most fervently hope for here has already happened there.

So: Why does no one seem particularly interested in visiting Denmark? (“Honey, on our European trip, I want to see Tuscany, Paris, Berlin and . . . Jutland!”) Visitors say Danes are joyless to be around. Denmark suffers from high rates of alcoholism. In its use of antidepressants it ranks fourth in the world. (Its fellow Nordics the Icelanders are in front by a wide margin.) Some 5 percent of Danish men have had sex with an animal. Denmark’s productivity is in decline, its workers put in only 28 hours a week, and everybody you meet seems to have a government job. Oh, and as The Telegraph put it, it’s “the cancer capital of the world.”

So how happy can these drunk, depressed, lazy, tumor-ridden, pig-bonking bureaucrats really be?

Let’s look a little closer, suggests Michael Booth, a Brit who has lived in Denmark for many years, in his new book, “The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia” (Picador).

Those sky-high happiness surveys, it turns out, are mostly bunk. Asking people “Are you happy?” means different things in different cultures. In Japan, for instance, answering “Yes” seems like boasting, Booth points out. Whereas in Denmark, it’s considered “shameful to be unhappy,” newspaper editor Anne Knudsen says in the book.

Moreover, there is a group of people that believes the Danes are lying when they say they’re the happiest people on the planet. This group is known as “Danes.”

“Over the years I have asked many Danes about these happiness surveys — whether they really believe that they are the global happiness champions — and I have yet to meet a single one of them who seriously believes it’s true,” Booth writes. “They tend to approach the subject of their much-vaunted happiness like the victims of a practical joke waiting to discover who the perpetrator is.”

Danes are well aware of their worldwide reputation for being the happiest little Legos in the box. Answering “No” would be as unthinkable as honking in traffic in Copenhagen. When the author tried this (once), he was scolded by his bewildered Danish passenger: “What if they know you?” Booth was asked.

That was a big clue: At a party, the author joked, it typically takes about eight minutes for people to discover someone they know in common. Denmark is a land of 5.3 million homogeneous people. Everyone talks the same, everyone looks the same, everyone thinks the same.

This is universally considered a feature — a glorious source of national pride in the land of humblebrag. Any rebels will be made to conform; tall poppies will be chopped down to average.

The country’s business leaders are automatically suspect because of the national obsession with averageness: Shipping tycoon Maersk McKinney Moller, the richest man in the country before his death in 2012, avoided the national shame of being a billionaire by being almost absurdly hoi polloi. He climbed stairs to his office every day, attended meetings until well into his 90s and brown-bagged his lunch.

An American woman told Booth how, when she excitedly mentioned at a dinner party that her kid was first in his class at school, she was met with icy silence.

One of the most country’s most widely known quirks is a satirist’s crafting of what’s still known as the Jante Law — the Ten Commandments of Buzzkill. “You shall not believe that you are someone,” goes one. “You shall not believe that you are as good as we are,” is another. Others included “You shall not believe that you are going to amount to anything,” “You shall not believe that you are more important than we are” and “You shall not laugh at us.”

Richard Wilkinson, an author and professor who published a book arguing for the superiority of egalitarian cultures, told Booth, “Hunter-gatherer societies — which are similar to prehistoric societies — are highly egalitarian. And if someone starts to take on a more domineering position, they get ridiculed or teased or ostracized. These are what’s called counter-dominance strategies, and they maintain the greater equality.”

So Danes operate on caveman principles — if you find it, share it, or be shunned. Once your date with Daisy the Sheep is over, you’d better make sure your friends get a turn. (Bestiality has traditionally been legal in Denmark, though a move to ban it is under way. Until recently, several “bestiality brothels” advertised their services in newspapers, generally charging clients $85 to $170 for what can only be termed a roll in the hay.)

The flip side of the famous “social cohesion” is that outsiders are unwelcome. Xenophobic remarks are common. At gatherings, the spirit of “hygge” — loosely translated as cozy — prevails. It’s considered uncouth to try to steer the conversation toward anything anyone might conceivably disagree about. This is why even the Danes describe Danes as boring.

In addition to paying enormous taxes — the total bill is 58 percent to 72 percent of income — Danes have to pay more for just about everything. Books are a luxury item. Their equivalent of the George Washington Bridge costs $45 to cross. Health care is free — which means you pay in time instead of money. Services are distributed only after endless stays in waiting rooms. (The author brought his son to an E.R. complaining of a foreign substance that had temporarily blinded him in one eye and was turned away, told he had to make an appointment.) Pharmacies are a state-run monopoly, which means getting an aspirin is like a trip to the DMV.

Other Scandinavian countries (Booth defines the term broadly, to include Nordic brethren Iceland and Finland in addition to Denmark, Sweden and Norway) raise other questions about how perfect the nearly perfect people really are. Iceland’s famous economic boom turned out to be one of history’s most notorious real estate bubbles. A common saying in Denmark about Icelanders: They wear shoes that are too big for them, and they keep tripping over the shoelaces.

The success of the Norwegians — the Beverly Hillbillies of Europe — can’t be imitated. Previously a peasant nation, the country now has more wealth than it can spend: Colossal offshore oil deposits spawned a sovereign wealth fund that pays for everything.

Finland, which tops the charts in many surveys (they’re the least corrupt people on Earth, its per-capita income is the highest in Western Europe and Helsinki often tops polls of the best cities), is also a leader in categories like alcoholism, murder (highest rate in Western Europe), suicide and antidepressant usage.

Their leading filmmaker, Aki Kaurismaki, makes features so “unremittingly morose they made [Ingmar] Bergman look like Mr. Bean,” reports Booth.

Finnish etiquette demands little in the way of conversation (the men, especially, speak as if being charged by the syllable) but much in the way of alcohol abuse. It’s considered poor form to leave the party when there is anything left in a bottle. Although their overall alcohol consumption is near the European average, they binge-drink more than almost any other country on the continent. Booze-related disease is the leading cause of death for Finnish men, and second for women.

The suicide rate is 50 percent higher than in the US and more than double the UK rate. Party guests, even at upscale gatherings, report that, around 11:30 at night, things often take a fighty turn.

It turns out that the “warrior gene” — actually the enzyme monoamine oxidase A, which is linked to impulsive behavior, violence and alcoholism — is especially prevalent in Finland. “Dark” doesn’t just describe winter in the Arctic suburbs, it applies to the Finnish character.

Macho isn’t a problem in Sweden. Dubbed the least masculine country on Earth by anthropologist Geert Hofstede, it’s the place where male soldiers are issued hairnets instead of being made to cut their hair.
But Scandinavian cohesion may not work in conjunction with massive immigration: Almost one-third of the Swedish population was born elsewhere. Immigration is associated in the Swedish mind with welfare (housing projects full of people on the dole) and with high crime rates (these newcomers being more than four times as likely to commit murder). Islamist gangs control some of the housing projects. Friction between “ethnic Swedes” and the immigrants is growing.

Welfare states work best among a homogeneous people, and the kind of diversity and mistrust we have between groups in America means we could never reach a broad consensus on Nordic levels of social spending.

Anyway, Sweden thought better of liberal economics too: When its welfare state became unsustainable (something savvy Danes are just starting to say), it went on a privatization spree and cut government spending from 67 percent of GDP to less than half. In the wake of the global financial crisis, it chose austerity, eliminating its budget deficit (it now runs a slight surplus).

As for its supposedly sweet-natured national persona, in a poll in which Swedes were asked to describe themselves, the adjectives that led the pack were “envious, stiff, industrious, nature-loving, quiet, honest, dishonest and xenophobic.” In last place were these words: “masculine,” “sexy” and “artistic.”

Scandinavia, as a wag in The Economist once put it, is a great place to be born — but only if you are average. The dead-on satire of Scandinavian mores “Together” is a 2000 movie by Sweden’s Lukas Moodysson set in a multi-family commune in 1975, when the groovy Social Democratic ideal was utterly unquestioned in Sweden.

In the film’s signature scene, a sensitive, apron-wearing man tells his niece and nephew as he is making breakfast, “You could say that we are like porridge. First we’re like small oat flakes — small, dry, fragile, alone. But then we’re cooked with the other oat flakes and become soft. We join so that one flake can’t be told apart from another. We’re almost dissolved. Together we become a big porridge that’s warm, tasty, and nutritious and yes, quite beautiful, too. So we are no longer small and isolated but we have become warm, soft and joined together. Part of something bigger than ourselves. Sometimes life feels like an enormous porridge, don’t you think?”

Then he spoons a great glutinous glob of tasteless starch onto the poor kids’ plates. That’s Scandinavia for you, folks: Bland, wholesome, individual-erasing mush. But, hey, at least we’re all united in being slowly digested by the system."

Interview with Michael Booth -

One of your overriding observations is that Scandinavian cultures tend to breed what Americans would perceive as a stultifying conformity. You give this impression of Denmark, for instance, as a nation filled with dull Ned Flander-types—a bunch of public sector retirees that spend their summers at communal singing retreats.

In other cultures, you have "tall poppy syndrome," where if a reality star makes a record or buys a Lamborghini, they'll get pilloried in the media. The difference in Scandinavia is that tall poppy syndrome applies to everyone all the time. So if you show naked ambition or arrogance, you will get cut down to size. "Don't think you are that special, don't show off, don't boast." No one wears a suit and tie in parliament. It's extraordinary.

If you want an incredibly equal, socially cohesive society, you definitely lose something by way of individuality, eccentricity, diversity. Often I'm asked, "Could the Nordic template be applied to Britain or America?" And the answer is no. You can't just hope that people will suddenly become conformist and driven by equality. It doesn't work that way.

On the other hand, I live here in Denmark, almost out of my own free will. [He's married to a Dane.] And I appreciate so much about it right now. But yeah, there are reservations of course. To put it really brutally simply: living here can be a bit boring.

And that emphasis on equality saturates Scandinavia's much-vaunted public schools, right?

We sent our kids to a mainstream state school, which is based on the principles of raising the lower ability children up to the median. It's all-inclusive, so you can't exclude children if they're badly behaved or have special needs or that kind of thing. That didn't work from our point of view. Our children didn't take well to having chairs thrown at them and teachers not turning up.

I was in Copenhagen a while ago and I saw two or three kids have an impromptu running race on the pavement and one of the kids won and did an American-football-style celebration. His mother grabbed him by the arm and scolded him for that.

My son's class did a production of Treasure Island. The teachers rotated the class so that in every scene someone different played Long John Silver or Jack Hawkins or whatever. It made absolute nonsense of any sense of drama or narrative. But again, it was this idea: Everyone should have their turn. Everyone should be treated equally, rather than celebrate one student who was a great singer or actor.

You seem to have mixed feelings about Denmark's tax rates.

We literally have the highest taxes in the world. They're not just quite high: They're the absolute highest.

I don't see that mirrored in quality of services. The education system ranks about level with the United Kingdom, which is not great shakes and nothing to be proud of. Similarly, the health service is struggling and creaking. Its not commensurate with the highest taxes in the world.

A quick detour to the semi-feral people of Iceland: Their distinctive traits seem to be this overbearing need to try to channel an ancient Viking machismo and the fact that there are so few of them.

If you meet an Icelander, you should consider it as if you've seen a snow leopard. They are kind of an endangered species—well, they're not endangered, actually, because they're good at breeding. They're all quite closely interrelated, which is a bit awkward when it comes to breeding. So there's an app so if you're in a bar in Reykjavík and you meet another Icelander you take a fancy to, you can both use this app to make sure you're not too closely related before you pair off.

Some of these Scandinavian countries have tightly restrictive immigration policies driven by radical right-wing parties that are quickly growing in popularity. You point out that Anders Breivik, the neo-nazi psychopath behind the 2011 mass shooting in Norway, was a member of a political party that now controls something like 15 percent of the Norwegian parliament.

Scandinavian immigration policies are very different depending on what country you're talking about. Sweden has an amazingly humanitarian, open-door policy, which has been extremely beneficial to their economy over the last few years. Norway has been very closed off, with record numbers of repatriations recently.

Breivik left that party because he didn't find them extreme enough, in their defense. But after his attacks, in which 77 people died, the biggest mass killing in the history of Norway, the party actually for the first time was elected into a coalition government. And their leader is the finance minister now. You could call it a mixed message about how Norwegians feel about immigration and integration.

Sweden's immigration policies are obviously admirable, but you detail the serious problems it's had with integration.

Sweden has tended toward ghettoization. Sweden has all sorts of problems because it makes this whole conversation a bit of a taboo. There's a kind of self-censorship in the Swedish media. For the last 100 years, it has considered itself the modernist, progressive country, a moral guiding light for Europe, if not the world. It's an uncomfortable truth to have to face up to that maybe they've got it a little bit wrong.

Now that you've immersed yourself in Scandinavian culture, what most sticks out to you when you visit the United States?

The obvious thing is the diversity—ethnic diversity, economic diversity, cultural diversity. They're exponentially larger in the States. And a superficial thing but it means a lot: People are just so friendly and chatty and nice, which you do not get in Scandinavia. Coming to the U.S. is like a warm bath. People talk to you on the street.

Utopia -

The Danish Don't Have the Secret to Happiness

[www.theatlantic.com]

Danish author Askel Sandemose’s works are little read in his home country these days—except, that is, for a small fragment of one novel, A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks, published in 1933. The fragment of A Fugitive that has come both to define and to torment the Danes is a list of rules by which the residents of the fictional town of Jante were said to abide. These rules set out the Law of Jante, a kind of Danish Ten Commandments, the social norms one should be aware of if one is planning a move to the north:

You shall not believe that you are someone.
You shall not believe that you are as good as we are.
You shall not believe that you are any wiser than we are.
You shall never indulge in the conceit of imagining that you are better than we are.
You shall not believe that you know more than we do.
You shall not believe that you are more important than we are.
You shall not believe that you are going to amount to anything.
You shall not laugh at us.
You shall not believe that anyone cares about you.
You shall not believe that you can teach us anything.

The truth is, Sandemose really nailed the Danes. My experience has been that Jante Law, which has become a national social manifesto of sorts, operates everywhere in Denmark on some level or another.

Newspaper editor Anne Knudsen had an interesting theory relating to why the Danes continue to respond positively to happiness surveys: “In Denmark it is shameful to be unhappy,” she told me. “If you ask me how I am and I start telling you how bad I feel, then it might force you to do something about it. It might put a burden on you to help me. So, that’s one of the main reasons people say things are all right, or even ‘super.’”

Here’s another convincing theory, posited by a Danish friend of mine: “We always come top of those surveys because they ask us at the beginning of the year what our expectations are,” he said. “Then they ask us at the end of the year whether those expectations were met. And because our expectations are so extremely low at the beginning of the year, they tend to get met more easily.”

Could that be the secret of the Danes’ contentedness? Low expectations? It is true that, when asked how they expect the next year to pan out, the Danes do typically expect less than the rest of us, and when their low expectations are fulfilled, so are they. Happiness has never been an “inalienable right” in Denmark, so it could be that the Danes appreciate it all the more when it manifests itself. Perhaps Danish happiness is not really happiness at all, but something much more valuable and durable: contentedness, being satisfied with your lot, low-level needs being met, higher expectations being kept in check.

A surprising number of Danes agree with me, though: They also think their homeland is stultifyingly dull. Newspaper columnist Anne Sophia Hermansen, of the broadsheet Berlingske, caused a small kerfuffle recently when she expressed her feelings about what she saw as Denmark’s suffocating monoculture: “It is so boring in Denmark. We wear the same clothes, shop in the same places, see the same TV, and struggle to know who to vote for because the parties are so alike. We are so alike it makes me weep.”

Another prominent newspaper commentator, Jyllands-Posten’s Niels Lillelund, pinpointed a more serious side effect of the Danes’ Jante Law mentality: “In Denmark we do not raise the inventive, the hardworking, the ones with initiative, the successful or the outstanding; we create hopelessness, helplessness, and the sacred, ordinary mediocrity.”

Even the usually ebullient Ove Kaj Perdsen, an economist at the Copenhagen Business School, was open to this line of criticism: “I like Denmark, but I like to work abroad. I pay my taxes with great honor because I know for a fact that whenever I need something it will be there … Every day I conclude the best place to live is Denmark, but for me this kind of social cohesion, these middle-class-oriented societies, do not present the kind of challenges I am looking for. I want to be in the best places, and you don’t find the best places in Denmark when it comes to elite research and education. And why the hell can’t you go down to the bookstore in the morning and buy The New York Times for five dollars? Or get a good cup of coffee for a cheap price?”

History Lesson - The Nordic countries had a Free Market, were hard-working Protestant people with Individual Responsibility before they were the liberal Welfare States of today -

The Nordic Democratic-Socialist Myth

The American Left dreams of importing the Nordic social system — but how accurate is their caricature?

The social success of Nordic countries pre-dates progressive welfare-state policies.

Although Bernie Sanders failed to win the Democratic presidential nomination, the Vermont senator’s campaign did succeed in mobilizing thousands of progressive activists. Their energy and support seems closely connected to Sanders’s quest to introduce a Nordic-style welfare model in the United States. As Sanders explained at the very first Democratic debate last October, “I think we should look to countries like Denmark, like Sweden and Norway, and learn from what they have accomplished for their working people.”

But it’s evident that the left wing of the Democratic party would also push for these ideas under a future Hillary Clinton administration. Indeed, Ezra Klein, the editor of the liberal news website Vox, wrote last fall that “Clinton and Sanders both want to make America look a lot more like Denmark — they both want to pass generous parental leave policies, let the government bargain down drug prices, and strengthen the social safety net.”

The current president and the last Democratic president share this vision, too. In his book Back to Work (2011), Bill Clinton argues that Finland, Sweden, and Norway offer greater opportunities for individuals to climb the social ladder than the U.S. does. Barack Obama recently gathered the leaders of the Nordic countries in Washington, explaining that “in a world of growing economic disparities, Nordic countries have some of the least income inequality in the world — which may explain one of the reasons that they’re some of the happiest people in the world.”

It is not difficult to grasp the American Left’s admiration for Nordic-style democratic socialism. These countries combine relatively high living standards with low poverty, long life spans, and narrow income distributions — everything the Left would like America to have. There is, however, a simple fact that seems to have escaped those who idealize Nordic-style social democracy. As I show in my forthcoming book Debunking Utopia: Exposing the Myth of Nordic Socialism, the social success of Nordic countries pre-dates progressive welfare-state policies.

A common misconception is that the Nordic countries became socially and economically successful by introducing universal welfare states funded by high taxes. In fact, their economic and social success had already materialized during a period when these countries combined a small public sector with free-market policies. The welfare state was introduced afterward. That the Nordic countries are so successful is due to an exceptional culture that emphasizes social cohesion, hard work, and individual responsibility.

Today, in contrast, Nordic countries stand out as having high-tax models. Denmark, for example, has the highest tax rate among developed nations. But in 1960, the tax rate in the country was merely 25 percent of GDP, lower than the 27 percent rate in the U.S. at the time. In Sweden, the rate was 29 percent, only slightly higher than in the U.S. In fact, much of Nordic prosperity evolved between the time that a capitalist model was introduced in this part of the world during the late 19th century and the mid 20th century – during the free-market era.

What might come as a surprise to American admirers of the Nordic countries is that high levels of income equality evolved during the same period. Swedish economists Jesper Roine and Daniel Waldenström, for example, explain that “most of the decrease [in income inequality in Sweden] takes place before the expansion of the welfare state and by 1950 Swedish top income shares were already lower than in other countries.” A recent paper by economists Anthony Barnes Atkinson and Jakob Egholt Søgaard reaches a similar conclusion for Denmark and Norway.

Cultural norms and mores are hugely important in a country’s development — the Scandinavian countries are a prime example. In modern management literature, people from the Nordic countries are described as honest and hard-working. Attitude studies show that they have unusually high levels of societal trust. Historic sources tell us that these attributes were already evident among the Nordic people centuries ago. While some scholars attribute this to the Protestant work ethic, it is likely that climate played an equally important role in creating the Nordic success culture. Nordic farmers owned their land but struggled to survive in the unforgiving climate of Scandinavia. In order to thrive, these homogenous societies developed strict work ethics, healthy lifestyles, and a code of individual responsibility out of necessity. To paraphrase the ancient Persian king Cyrus the Great, hard lands breed hard people.

American admirers of Nordic-style social democracy argue that by copying social-democratic policies, the U.S. will copy Nordic social success. But is this true?

In 1960, well before large welfare states had been created in Nordic countries, Swedes lived 3.2 years longer than Americans, while Norwegians lived 3.8 years longer and Danes 2.4 years longer. Today, after the Nordic countries have introduced universal health care, the difference has shrunk to 2.9 years in Sweden, 2.6 years in Norway, and 1.5 years in Denmark. The differences in life span have actually shrunk as Nordic countries moved from a small public sector to a democratic-socialist model with universal health coverage. Moreover, the longest average life spans among Nordic peoples are found in Iceland — the small Nordic cousin that has the most distinctly Nordic culture, but also the most limited welfare system.

It is equally interesting to look at Nordic Americans, a group that combines the Nordic success culture with U.S.-style capitalism. It was mainly the impoverished people in the Nordic countries who sailed across the Atlantic to found new lives. And yet, as I write in my book, Danish Americans today have fully 55 percent higher living standard than Danes. Similarly, Swedish Americans have a 53 percent higher living standard than Swedes. The gap is even greater, 59 percent, between Finnish Americans and Finns. Even though Norwegian Americans lack the oil wealth of Norway, they have a 3 percent higher living standard than their cousins overseas.

Perhaps even more astonishing is that Nordic Americans are more socially successful than their cousins in Scandinavia. They have much lower high-school-dropout rates, much lower unemployment rates, and even slightly lower poverty rates. Similarly, immigrants to the Nordic countries fare worse than those to the U.S. with regard to employment, self-reported health, and the school results of their children.

In short: What the American Left admires about the Nordic countries clearly has less to do with their social-democratic welfare states than with the exceptional culture in these historically Protestant societies.

Currently, Nordic-style democratic socialism is all the rage among Democrat activists as well as with liberal intellectuals and journalists. But in the Nordic countries themselves, this ideal has gradually lost its appeal. Only one of the five Nordic countries, Sweden, currently has a government headed by social democrats. The other four countries have center-right governments. Moreover, the Swedish Social Democrats enjoy weaker popular support today than at any point in modern times. They lead a minority government, as the majority of Swedes either support one of the center-right parties or the anti-immigration party.

During the past few decades, the Nordic countries have gradually been reforming their social systems. Taxes have been cut to stimulate work, public benefits have been limited in order to reduce welfare dependency, pension savings have been partially privatized, for-profit forces have been allowed in the welfare sector, and state monopolies have been opened up to the market. In short, the universal-welfare-state model is being liberalized. Even the social-democratic parties themselves realize the need for change.

Curiously, the American admirers of Nordic-style democratic socialism pay no heed to any of these facts. For them, the Nordic countries serve as a Shangri-La, a promised land reachable through generous welfare policies, high taxes, government redistribution, and a massively expanded public sector. Never mind that a closer look shows that these policies are not what explain the success of Nordic societies, and that the Nordic people themselves are becoming less enthusiastic about democratic socialism. Unfortunately, the American Left is more interested in the Nordic myth than a nuanced view of the actual benefits — and drawbacks — of democratic socialism.


[www.nationalreview.com]

well if its not the Liberals fault it must be Obama then.
All this Liberal jacketing made me flash on Oaks song.


Love Me, I'm a Liberal

Phil Ochs





Love Me, I'm a Liberal Lyrics



I cried when they shot Medgar Evers
Tears ran down my spine
I cried when they shot Mr. Kennedy
As though I'd lost a father of mine
But Malcolm X got what was coming
He got what he asked for this time
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I go to civil rights rallies
And I put down the old D.A.R
I love Harry and Sidney and Sammy
I hope every colored boy becomes a star
But don't talk about revolution
That's going a little bit too far
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I cheered when Humphrey was chosen
My faith in the system restored
I'm glad the commies were thrown out
Of the A.F.L. C.I.O. board
I love Puerto Ricans and Negros
As long as they don't move next door
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

The people of old Mississippi
Should all hang their heads in shame
I can't understand how their minds work
What's the matter don't they watch Les Crane?
But if you ask me to bus my children
I hope the cops take down your name
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I read New republic and Nation
I've learned to take every view
You know, I've memorized Lerner and Golden
I feel like I'm almost a Jew
But when it comes to times like Korea
There's no one more red, white and blue
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I vote for the democratic party
They want the U.N. to be strong
I go to all the Pete Seeger concerts
He sure gets me singing those songs
I'll send all the money you ask for
But don't ask me to come on along
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

Once I was young and impulsive
I wore every conceivable pin
Even went to the socialist meetings
Learned all the old union hymns
But I've grown older and wiser
And that's why I'm turning you in
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

Admit I don't know who the two Black Leaders are. Who are they?

QUOTE JTPRINDL
Three things that should never be operated for profit: Healthcare, Prisons, and Education... Because they directly correspond with Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness. The United States spends more on healthcare per capita than any other country yet has a lower average life expectancy and higher chronic disease rates than most wealthy nations. A large percentage of the population is on anti-depressants or some other type of pyschiatric drug.

One out of every six Americans are on anti depressants.

"Large differences were found in race/ethnicity, with 20.8 percent of white adults reporting use versus 8.7 percent of Hispanic adults," they added. About 9 percent of African-Americans reported taking one or more psychiatric drug.
Thats why I feel the USA needs to be disarmed,
300 million plus population and over 19 million scripts for anti depressants
says somthing!

Its very easy to see how America elected Adolf Trump,
with so many on drugs.


Yes you have to be asleep to believe the American Dream.


PUT THE POLITICIANS ON MINIMUM WAGE AND WACTH HOW FAST THINGS CHANGE

The new wall Trump wants to build should be rubber on our side.

Trump voters want action—what kind hardly matters, so long as there is someone to attack. Consistent with the long tradition of American know-nothingism, they don’t care who is genuinely responsible for their misfortune as long as they can find a target for their blind and unquenchable anger.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 12/22/2017 01:35AM by riverhousebill.

Quote
jtprindl

The United States spends more on healthcare per capita than any other country yet has a lower average life expectancy and higher chronic disease rates than most wealthy nations. A large percentage of the population is on anti-depressants or some other type of pyschiatric drug.

I read many articles so far that state Denmark leads the US and most countries in Anti-Depressant use. I guess that's why they're so happy.

I guess I'll have to go find all those articles about their Extremely High Anti-Depressant Use, Extremely High Alcoholism Rate and Extremely High Suicide Rate and post them for you and rhb.

Yeah, they're so happy...

Expounding on the aforementioned State of Denmark -

Do We Really Want to Model the U.S. After Denmark?

[www.conservativedailynews.com]

Another of Sanders’ erroneous statements regarding Denmark was when he claimed that Denmark’s economic model “provides extraordinary security and opportunity.” It does provide security, but little opportunity, economic or otherwise.

Democratic socialism is a political ideology which juxtaposes a democratic political system, (popular elections), with a socialist economic system. As such, it involves a combination of political democracy (usually multi-party democracy) with “social ownership of the means of production.” Consequently, it can be somewhat characterized as a less tyrannical and totalitarian form of socialism, since the masses are voting for the cadre that will separate them from the fruits of their labors. And while it may not abolish private property ownership, as its more draconian sibling, communism does, it taxes income, and inflates prices sufficiently, that private property ownership is severely limited.

The sheer economies of scale make a comparison between the Scandinavian country and the U.S. impracticable. Denmark, with a landmass of 16,562 square miles, is roughly the size of Maryland, and with a population of 5.6 million, has about 1.5% of the U.S. population. Compound that with America’s propensity toward a kakistocracy, as evidenced by the last two presidential election cycles, and democratic-socialism would likely destroy the economy, and the republic.

Danish author, Mikkel Clair Nissen, has published his own response to Americans who think Denmark’s democratic-socialism is so appealing. “I am a school teacher from Denmark making about $61,000 a year. We get free education. You don’t have to pay for the doctor, the hospital, and students even get paid to study. It all sounds so great…right? However, I forgot to mention that nothing is ever free. The lowest personal income tax in Denmark is minimum 40 percent. Also, we pay a sales tax of 25 percent, and on top of sales tax the government applies further (generally hidden) duties and fees, applied to almost everything, making it really hard for lower class people to get by, causing them to be deeply dependent on government handouts,” she says.

Just as most of the fiscal initiatives of the past seven years have most adversely affected the American middle class, European democratic-socialism virtually plunders theirs. The middle-class in Denmark is taxed at a 60% rate, and that’s just the income tax rate. Yet to pay that rate, all one has to make is $55,000 per year. That means those who, by American standards, are earning a respectable middle-class income of $55k per year, only keep $22,000 of their earnings. That’s a relatively paltry $1,833 per month.

Nissen continues, “A gallon of gas is about 10 dollars. Tax on a car is 180 percent, which brings a car valued a bit over $20,000 dollars in the United States (e.g. Honda Accord) up to an astounding $50,000 dollars in Denmark.” No wonder 65% of the travel in the country is by mass transit and bicycle. And not surprisingly, cost of energy is extremely expensive, as most electricity is produced by “green” sources. The cost per kilowatt-hour of electricity is $.42, compared with an average of $.12 in the United States.

democrat-socialism-cartoon-102308Nissen further explains, because of “excessive taxation, Danes also have the highest private debt in the world. Only few will ever own a car or a house here; banks generally do – hypocritically, the very same banks that the collectivists despise. Anyone who makes over $80,000 annually pays a personal tax of 68 percent. This means that almost all people with higher earnings have either found ways to evade taxes, or have left the country, often bringing their companies with them, making employment scarcely low.”

According to Eurostat, the European Union’s official data reporting service, real unemployment is double what the official figures indicate. By their calculations, Denmark’s real unemployment rate is 14%.

And Nissen provides more insights. “Denmark’s suicide rate has averaged 20.8 per 100,000 during the last five decades, with its highest level of 32. The American suicide rate averaged only 11.1 during the last five decades, and has never exceeded 12.7. Danes are deeply deprived, driven by severe narcissism, and so more than 11 percent of adult Danes – the supposed happiest people in the world – are on antidepressants. Well, of course, Danes are happy; they are medicated to be!”

If Danes are so happy to be economically socialized, why do they take their own lives at three times the American rate, and their anti-depressant dependency exceed America’s by 40%? Could it be that the cost of freedom is much greater than we assume?

Nissen concludes his missive, “Everyone wants the American dream. In Denmark’s neo-communism, no one will ever own or accomplish anything.”

America was founded on classical-liberal ideals of maximum freedom to facilitate virtually unlimited potential. Benjamin Franklin said, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor safety.” And that’s precisely what socialism, in all its iterations, does. It sacrifices individual freedom at the altar of security and egalitarianism

One of the most critical concepts of liberty upon which America was founded, is economic freedom. Indeed, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton championed economic freedom as the foundation for all other liberties. True liberty mandates that private property, and the ability to reap and freely expend the fruits of our labors, is sacrosanct. Nobel economic laureate Milton Friedman declared that property rights are “the most basic of human rights and an essential foundation for other human rights.” Without economic freedom, all else is severely vitiated.

There might be some things America can learn from the Danish economic model, but only if we deny what America was founded and intended to be — the land of the free, dedicated to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

**********

Thank you for the opportunity you gave me to research what's rotten in Denmark and why the people are so lethargic.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/22/2017 04:17AM by Jennifer.

Jennifer, this quote speaks for me on the subject of abortion.

I’m not pro-abortion. I support the legalization of abortion. I do not like abortion. However, I do think it should be available for women who want it, especially if they were raped or have zero interest in caring for a child.

I would like abortion to be safe, legal, a and rare, we can all work on the rare part.


Jennifer, If abortion was illegal, what should be done with women who have abortions?

Quote
riverhousebill
Jennifer, this quote speaks for me on the subject of abortion.

I’m not pro-abortion. I support the legalization of abortion. I do not like abortion. However, I do think it should be available for women who want it, especially if they were raped or have zero interest in caring for a child.

I would like abortion to be safe, legal, a and rare, we can all work on the rare part.

That means you ARE 'pro-abortion'.

And women 'who have zero interest in caring for a child' means pretty much an abortion free for all.

*********

If Abortion were Illegal...

If a woman gets pregnant and doesn't want the baby and to raise the child, she can carry it for nine months and then give it up for Adoption. There are so many women who can't have babies and desperately want one. There are and will be many more infertile women and men in the future because some drugs (anti-depressants/anti-anxiety drugs, accutane, etc.) cause infertility in both the male and female, but that's another issue.

*********

Quote

Jennifer, If abortion was illegal, what should be done with women who have abortions?

The same as Illegally harming and killing a dog or cat - Animal Cruelty Laws. Jail time imposed under Baby Cruelty Laws.

"Just about every state, county, city, or township has animal cruelty laws, and these laws prohibit people from killing animals. In California, for example, a person who "maliciously and intentionally maims, mutilates, tortures, or wounds a living animal, or maliciously and intentionally kills an animal" is guilty...

New York's animal cruelty law is even more extensive:

A person who overdrives, overloads, tortures or cruelly beats or unjustifiably injures, maims, mutilates or kills any animal, whether wild or tame, and whether belonging to himself or to another, or deprives any animal of necessary sustenance, food or drink, or neglects or refuses to furnish it such sustenance or drink, or causes, procures or permits any animal to be overdriven, overloaded, tortured, cruelly beaten, or unjustifiably injured, maimed, mutilated or killed, or to be deprived of necessary food or drink, or who willfully sets on foot, instigates, engages in, or in any way furthers any act of cruelty to any animal, or any act tending to produce such cruelty, is guilty..."

All of our states impose a prison sentence for harming and killing a dog or cat. Surely the same should apply to a woman who kills her own child.

Concerning the doctor who performs such heinous acts, even more of a penalty.

Image via Twitter/Patrick S. Tomlinson


Writer laid out the dishonesty of pro-life zealots on Twitter

The topic of abortion is one of those issues that, like gun control, or where you stand on President Trump, has become so divisive that thinking rationally has taken a backseat to emotion and politics.



A writer on Twitter laid the situation bare with one simple question.

His name is Patrick S. Tomlinson, and he’s a science fiction writer. Last week, he took to Twitter to lay out the one question he’s been asking the “life begins at conception” contingent of anti-abortionists for ten years. In the decade he’s been asking it, he claims he’s never gotten a straight, or honest, answer.
“

Whenever abortion comes up, I have a question I've been asking for ten years now of the "Life begins at Conception" crowd. In ten years, no one has EVER answered it honestly. 1/

— Patrick S. Tomlinson (@stealthygeek) October 17, 2017
”

“

It's a simple scenario with two outcomes. No one ever wants to pick one, because the correct answer destroys their argument. And there IS a correct answer, which is why the pro-life crowd hates the question. 2/
— Patrick S. Tomlinson (@stealthygeek) October 17, 2017”
Here comes the question, and it’s a doozy. (It’s also pretty long, so Patrick is lucky to be taking advantage of Twitter’s beta version of the 280 character tweet!)




Here it is. You're in a fertility clinic. Why isn't important. The fire alarm goes off. You run for the exit. As you run down this hallway, you hear a child screaming from behind a door. You throw open the door and find a five-year-old child crying for help. 3/
— Patrick S. Tomlinson (@stealthygeek) October 17, 2017”
“

They're in one corner of the room. In the other corner, you spot a frozen container labeled "1000 Viable Human Embryos." The smoke is rising. You start to choke. You know you can grab one or the other, but not both before you succumb to smoke inhalation and die, saving no one. 4/
— Patrick S. Tomlinson (@stealthygeek) October 17, 2017”
“

Do you A) save the child, or save the thousand embryos? There is no "C." "C" means you all die.

In a decade of arguing with anti-abortion people about the definition of human life, I have never gotten a single straight A or B answer to this question. And I never will. 5/
— Patrick S. Tomlinson (@stealthygeek) October 17, 2017”

BOOM.

Patrick explains why the question is such a conundrum.
“

They will never answer honestly, because we all instinctively understand the right answer is "A." A human child is worth more than a thousand embryos. Or ten thousand. Or a million. Because they are not the same, not morally, not ethically, not biologically. 6/
— Patrick S. Tomlinson (@stealthygeek) October 17, 2017”
He believes those who oppose abortion by claiming an embryo is the same thing as a human child have such a hard time answering because when they’re confronted with a scenario in which they are forced to compare the two things, any rational human being can see they aren’t the same. Anyone with a beating heart would save the living 5-year-old rather than those theoretical children.

But pro-lifers can’t admit it, for fear of acknowledging the lie behind their argument. And, Tomlinson suggests, because their end game isn’t to protect life, but to control women.




They are lying to you to try and evoke an emotional response, a paternal response, using false-equivalency.

No one believes life begins at conception. No one believes embryos are babies, or children. Those who cliam to are trying to manipulate you so they can control women. 8/
— Patrick S. Tomlinson (@stealthygeek) October 17, 2017”
Patrick ends his nine-part thought experiment with an exhortation to readers to refute the “life begins at conception” fallacy and call those people out for what they are: misogynists.
“

Don't let them. Use this question to call them out. Reveal them for what they are. Demand they answer your question, and when they don't, slap that big ol' Scarlet P of the Patriarchy on them. The end. 9/9
— Patrick S. Tomlinson (@stealthygeek) October 17, 2017”
Tomlinson’s series of tweets caught fire last week, and the original tweet has over 54,000 likes and 27,000 retweets. The abortion argument is not going away anytime soon, certainly not during the Trump administration.

He puts forth a provocative scenario designed to put pro-lifers in a difficult position. There is often more nuance to the abortion debate, there’s no denying that the writer’s question is an effective tool for outing those who are arguing based on emotion rather than logic.




Mike Julianelle

Follow: @dadandburied

Read More from Mike Julianelle:



Trending

Dad Makes Hilarious Ornament Commemorating Daughter’s Holiday Tantrum



News

Trump Bans CDC From Using 7 Words Including ‘Fetus’ And ‘Transgender’



Trending

This Family’s Narnia-Inspired ‘Christmas Room’ Has The Internet In Awe

Abortions and maternal death rates in Romania, 1965-2010.

The negative health effects of prohibiting abortion don't end with the mothers. Romania's abortion ban sparked a nationwide orphan crisis, as roughly 150,000 unwanted newborns were placed in nightmarish state-run orphanages. Many of those orphans now suffer from sever mental and physical health problems, including reduced brain size, schizoaffective disorder, and sociopathy.

Quote
riverhousebill
Abortions and maternal death rates in Romania, 1965-2010.

The negative health effects of prohibiting abortion don't end with the mothers. Romania's abortion ban sparked a nationwide orphan crisis, as roughly 150,000 unwanted newborns were placed in nightmarish state-run orphanages. Many of those orphans now suffer from sever mental and physical health problems, including reduced brain size, schizoaffective disorder, and sociopathy.

Gee, I wish you'd give links to your sources so we can read the entire article to get the whole story.

Anyway, that's just crazy. First of all, why are we talking about Romania? Sure there are nightmare situations in various weirdo/third-world/whatever countries.

Secondly as I thought and looked up on Google and it was confirmed, there are tons and tons more demand for babies that couples want to adopt than there are babies available for adoption, so it only makes sense for women to have their unwanted baby and give it up to someone who is wanting with every fiber of their being to adopt and love a baby.

Thirdly, that situation and most situations that are totally screwed up are connected with "The State" "Government" "bureaucracy" who we all know makes everything complicated, worse and screws 'we the people'. So the Government-Run Healthcare System in Romania was and is so crap that a lot of mothers died/die while getting abortions. Good reason not to get an abortion. Don't blame the death of mothers who are trying to kill their unborn babies on women who don't believe in killing their unborn babies.

And in a country with 19 million people, there's no way the unwanted babies should have been handed off to the Government Orphanages when there were plenty of women who would have loved to have taken and raised those babies, yet because of THE GOVERNMENT, they were thrown in horrible orphanages. Don't blame the ban on abortions for ruining those babies lives, blame THE GOVERNMENT/THE STATE for confiscating the babies who were desperately wanted by other loving women.

So I now will check out various articles which state the fact that there's a huge shortage of babies available for adoption.

Is that the best you've got? Romania? I guess the Romania narrative is the Pro-Abortion Baby-Killer Women's answer to why they should never be criticized for killing their babies, and instead those who don't believe in killing their babies should pay for the baby-killers killing their own babies.

************

Why don't you just say it -

"I believe women should be able to kill their unborn babies if they want to. Mothers have the right to kill the babies in their bellies. Unborn babies do not have the right to life. It is morally and ethically good and right for mothers to kill the baby in their womb. And mothers who do not believe in killing the babies in their womb should be forced by the government to pay for those mothers to kill the babies in their womb."

Is this a horror movie/are we living in the Twilight Zone where SOME women kill the unborn babies in their own bellies? Scary.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/23/2017 03:18AM by Jennifer.

Quote
riverhousebill

Writer laid out the dishonesty of pro-life zealots on Twitter

The topic of abortion is one of those issues that, like gun control, or where you stand on President Trump, has become so divisive that thinking rationally has taken a backseat to emotion and politics.

Rational Thinking says you don't kill your unborn baby in your belly. Duh! Unless you're a Lib Woman.

Quote
riverhousebill
A writer on Twitter laid the situation bare with one simple question.

His name is Patrick S. Tomlinson, and he’s a science fiction writer. Last week, he took to Twitter to lay out the one question he’s been asking the “life begins at conception” contingent of anti-abortionists for ten years. In the decade he’s been asking it, he claims he’s never gotten a straight, or honest, answer.

I don't believe him that he never got a straight or honest answer...

Quote

Whenever abortion comes up, I have a question I've been asking for ten years now of the "Life begins at Conception" crowd. In ten years, no one has EVER answered it honestly.

It's a simple scenario with two outcomes. No one ever wants to pick one, because the correct answer destroys their argument. And there IS a correct answer, which is why the pro-life crowd hates the question.

Here comes the question, and it’s a doozy.

No, it's not a doozy, it's a stupid question, because it's a false equivalency and everybody knows it.

Quote

Here it is. You're in a fertility clinic. Why isn't important. The fire alarm goes off. You run for the exit. As you run down this hallway, you hear a child screaming from behind a door. You throw open the door and find a five-year-old child crying for help.

They're in one corner of the room. In the other corner, you spot a frozen container labeled "1000 Viable Human Embryos." The smoke is rising. You start to choke. You know you can grab one or the other, but not both before you succumb to smoke inhalation and die, saving no one.

Do you A) save the child, or B ) save the thousand embryos?

Of course you save the child. The FROZEN embryos are not activated by growing in a womb. Now if there was a pregnant woman with a big belly in the other corner, that would be more of a conundrum. Or if there was a one-year old baby sleeping in one corner and a screaming three-year old child in the other corner, that would be a tougher decision.

Quote

In a decade of arguing with anti-abortion people about the definition of human life, I have never gotten a single straight A or B answer to this question. And I never will.

He is so annoying, because I'm sure if he's asked that question of pro-lifers, he's gotten a straight answer many times and I don't even believe he's been going around like an idiot asking that dumbass non-sequitur for a decade like he says he did. Only in his own mind. He's probably sitting in his parents' basement going online all day and night.

Quote

BOOM.

Patrick explains why the question is such a conundrum.

They will never answer honestly, because we all instinctively understand the right answer is "A." A human child is worth more than a thousand embryos. Or ten thousand. Or a million. Because they are not the same, not morally, not ethically, not biologically.

No kidding they're not the Exact same, but they are both 'A Life'. Different stages of maturity. And the Pro-LIFE women do not believe in killing 'A LIFE'. Every life is Different and every stage of life is Different, but they are all 'Lives'.

Quote

He believes those who oppose abortion by claiming an embryo is the same thing as a human child have such a hard time answering because when they’re confronted with a scenario in which they are forced to compare the two things, any rational human being can see they aren’t the same. Anyone with a beating heart would save the living 5-year-old rather than those theoretical children.

"THEORETICAL Children". No, 'babies in the making' or 'developing children', etc. But not 'theoretical'children. Not 'theoretical' at all. Proven that they are a human being in the making, a baby in the making, a child in the making. Pro-Life is all about not condoning the killing of 'unborn babies' 'babies in the making' 'future children'.

And why use the word 'children' instead of 'babies'. (Because the word 'children' is more of a stretch, and more effective. Don't tell me that 'babies' are persona non grata now in the lib world and only full-fledged 'children' have merit.) The issue is all about killing 'unborn babies' 'babies in the making' 'future children'.

Quote

But pro-lifers can’t admit it, for fear of acknowledging the lie behind their argument. And, Tomlinson suggests, because their end game isn’t to protect life, but to control women.

What? Now he's saying pro-life women are passionate about not killing unborn babies because they want to control other women!

Quote

They are lying to you to try and evoke an emotional response, a paternal response, using false-equivalency.

No one believes life begins at conception. No one believes embryos are babies, or children. Those who cliam to are trying to manipulate you so they can control women.

Again with the 'want to control women' crap that he made up.

Yes, some people believe life begins at conception. Yes, some people believe embryos are 'babies-in-the-making'. Who goes around saying that unborn babies are CHILDREN ...this guy just threw that word in as an extreme. But yes, an unborn baby is a 'child-to-be'.

Quote

Patrick ends his nine-part thought experiment with an exhortation to readers to refute the “life begins at conception” fallacy and call those people out for what they are: misogynists.

What? So now women who don't believe in killing their own babies in their bellies dislike or are prejudice against women! This guy is an idiot like I already said.

Quote

Don't let them. Use this question to call them out. Reveal them for what they are. Demand they answer your question, and when they don't, slap that big ol' Scarlet P of the Patriarchy on them. The end.

Tomlinson’s series of tweets caught fire last week, and the original tweet has over 54,000 likes and 27,000 retweets. The abortion argument is not going away anytime soon, certainly not during the Trump administration.

He puts forth a provocative scenario designed to put pro-lifers in a difficult position. There is often more nuance to the abortion debate, there’s no denying that the writer’s question is an effective tool for outing those who are arguing based on emotion rather than logic.

"Logic" says it's inhumane to kill your own baby in your belly. Yes, we feel emotional for those poor babies, especially how painful (yes, 'science' who you (meaning liberals) all worship when it's convenient, says unborn babies feel pain during abortions) it is for them.

Jennifer, If abortion was illegal, what should be done with women who have abortions?

The same as Illegally harming and killing a dog or cat - Animal Cruelty Laws. Jail time imposed under Baby Cruelty Laws


Jennifer, Punish under Baby Cruelty Laws,?
Would that charge be murder for having abortion?


And how about this pregancy is the third leading cause of death in women.
Should laws say she has to put her life in danger for a pregnancy she does not want.?

Also if a womenm is raped do you think she has some kind of moral obligation to go thru with a birth?
Does a womem have the rights to decide on what to do with her body or is that up to the church and state?



Jennifer I live in the same world as Tom Friedman



“In my world, you don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and be against common-sense gun control — like banning public access to the kind of semiautomatic assault rifle, designed for warfare, that was used recently in a Colorado theater. You don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and want to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency, which ensures clean air and clean water, prevents childhood asthma, preserves biodiversity and combats climate change that could disrupt every life on the planet. You don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and oppose programs like Head Start that provide basic education, health and nutrition for the most disadvantaged children...The term “pro-life” should be a shorthand for respect for the sanctity of life. But I will not let that label apply to people for whom sanctity for life begins at conception and ends at birth. What about the rest of life? Respect for the sanctity of life, if you believe that it begins at conception, cannot end at birth.”
? Thomas L. Friedman



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/23/2017 07:32AM by riverhousebill.